Case study: The Laponian Area

The Laponian area is situated close to the Arctic circle in the northern part of Sweden. It is an outstanding protected area in western Europe according to size, diversity of landscape and nature types and natural conditions. It is also the land of the Saami people who have lived there for many hundred years and for whom Laponia represents an area of highest cultural value. The site was included in The World Heritage list in December 1996 as a mixed natural and cultural property.

Size and protection

Laponia comprises 940 000 hectares of land and water. Its east-west extent is about 200 km and the greatest north-south extent is about 80 km. The protection of the area is built up by the National Parks Muddus, Sarek, Padjelanta and Stora Sjöfallet and the Nature Reserves Sjaunja and Stubba. Three adjacent areas protected by the Natural recourses act, are also included in the World Heritage site.

The area lies within two bio geographical regions (WCMC); the 2.6.5 Subarctic Birchwoods and the 2.3.3 West Eurasian Taiga. It consist of two totally different landscape types; the western high mountains and eastern monadnock plains

During the later parts of earth’s history, the last 10 - 15 million years, the landscape of northern Europe has been heavily affected by glaciations during several ice ages. In Laponia this is clearly demonstrated by distinct formations as glacial cirques, U-shaped valleys, kursu valleys, and different kinds of moraine ridges. Today you can also experience some distinctive ongoing geological processes like fast growing deltas and the creation of tundra polygons and palsa mires. In addition there are also several lake and river systems that stay intact.

The western mountains

In Sarek National Park, where amphibolites predominates, the landscape is extremely rugged and wild. The highest mountains in the park are very steep and dark, forming a magnificent wilderness of 200 000 hectares with sharp peaks, deep valleys and cascading watercourses. In Sarek there are 200 massifs with more than 1800 meters peak altitude and about 100 glaciers. The deeply carved Rapa valley is a particularly majestic and beautiful mountain valley.

Right to the west of Sarek lies Padjelanta National park. This park consists of different kinds of soft shale, often in combination with pockets of limestone. Sweeping mountain plateaux with large lakes form the terrain of Padjelanta and give this part of Laponia an open and very attractive character.

The Rapa valley in Sarek NP.

Early spring in Sarek NP

The Scandinavian Mountain chain is very distinctive in that the tree line is formed by mountain birch. In almost all other mountain ranges around the world, the tree line is made up by evergreens. In Laponia the birch forest covers large areas especially in the western section of Sjaunja and the eastern mountain valleys of Sarek. The birch forest consists of several distinctive forest types.

The birch forest is one of the vegetation features that contributes to the outstanding values of Laponia. Another one is the grass meadows and the extremely rich flora on the fertile soils in Padjelanta. More than 400 vascular plants are found here, which is a very high number for the Scandinavian mountains.

The eastern monadnock plain

The eastern part of Laponia consists of a plain of extremely ancient rocks of the primeval Baltic shield. All the peaks in the Sveko-Karelian chain were long ago levelled by the forces of erosion. The hardest rocks resisted partly erosion and remains as hills giving rise to the present monadnock plain. In Europe this special landscape type only exist in northern Sweden and in Finland.

The vegetation of the taiga part of Laponia is dominated by coniferous forests of Norvegian spruce and Scots pine. The forests constitute the western limits of the European-Asian taiga and remain essentially unaffected by forestry. The clearest indication of the pristine nature of the forest is the presence of numerous old trees, at most more than 700 years old and large quantities of standing or fallen deadwood. In Laponia there are some 120 000 hectar of this kind of forest which makes it the largest protected forest in western Europe.

The taiga part with natural forests and mires

In the eastern part of Laponia there are also about 120 000 hectares of peat lands. The mires consist mostly of Aapa mires and occur partly in mosaics with forests, partly in large open wetlands with numerous lakes. The cold climate also leads to the formation of palsa mires in some places. They are formed by the action of the ground frost and can rise to several metres in height, before melting and collapsing. In Sjaunja Nature Reserve there are some beautiful mires of this kind.

Animal life

Laponia provides many different kinds of habitats for the higher animals. Most of them live in the easterly mosaic of mires and primeval forests. Due to the undisturbed nature, there are more animals gathered in Laponia than in the surrounding areas that have been subjected to industrial forestry. Laponia has for a long time, been a stronghold for brown bear, lynx and wolverine. Other notable mammals are moose, otter and pine marten. The moose population in Sarek is of special interest as it is the only one in Europe that is almost completely protected from hunting. Due to this and good grazing condition in the valleys you can find moose of exceptional size in the park.

White tail eagle, golden eagle, gerfalcon and peregrine falcon are some of the birds of prey regularly nesting in the area. Ducks and wading birds are well represented in the wetlands. Owls, hen birds and a lot of smaller birds have naturally thin but constant populations in the forests. The number of nesting bird species in Laponia is about 100 including almost all species that occur in the mountains and forests of northern Scandinavia.

Short description of the Sámi culture

The first humans came to northern Scandinavia from both the east and the south when the region became habitable after the last ice age. One of the oldest dwelling-places in northern Sweden was discovered within Laponia in Stora Sjöfallet National Park. The Stone Age tools found there date from approximately 7000 B.C. It is generally believed that the ancestors of today‘s Sámi had arrived by that time. For thousands of years, they lived primarily by fishing and hunting, then they began to specialise in the hunting of wild reindeer around the time of Christ. During the Iron Age, the herding of domesticated reindeer was started on a small scale and became firmly established during the 16 th century.
The Sámi village still remains as an organizational form, and within the Laponian Area there are seven in operation. Every spring, the Sámi lead their huge herds of reindeer towards the mountains and in the autumn back down into the forests. Altogether, they herd approximately 35,000 reindeer. Padjelanta National Park, with its luxuriant meadows, provides especially valuable summer grazing areas, along with several traditional dwelling sites that are still used by the herders.

There are many historical monuments of the Sámi people within the Laponian Area. Sacrificial places, graves, pit traps, fences and other remains associated with reindeer husbandry are cultural traces, some of which are still more or less clearly visible in the terrain.

The Outstanding Universal Value of the Laponian Area

Justification for Inscription
The Committee decided to inscribe the nominated property on the basis of natural criteria (vii), (viii) and (ix) and cultural criteria (iii) and (v). The Committee considered that the site is of Outstanding Universal Value as it contains examples of ongoing geological, biological and ecological processes, a great variety of natural phenomena of exceptional beauty and significant biological diversity including a population of brown bear and alpine flora. It was noted that the site meets all conditions of integrity. The site has been occupied continuously by the Sámi people since prehistoric times, is one of the last and unquestionably largest and best preserved examples of an area of transhumance, involving summer grazing by large reindeer herds, a practice that was widespread at one time and which dates back to an early stage in human economic and social development.

In addition to this the following statements related to the natural world heritage criteria can be collected from the evaluation paper prepared by the advisory bodies in 1996.

Criteria (vii)
Great variety of natural phenomena of exceptional beauty. The snow-covered mountains in Sarek and Sulitelma are not only magnificent to see but are a text book of glacial-related geomorphology. The large alpine lakes in Padjelanta, with the mountain backdrop on the Swedish/Norwegian border are of exceptional beauty. The extensive Rapa Valley provides a total contrast with the alpine areas. Particularly noteworthy is its very active delta area, surrounding cliffs and rocky outliers with sheer faces plunging to the delta.

Criteria (viii)
The area contains all the processes associated with glacial activity such as U-shaped valleys, moraines, talus slopes, drumlins, presence of large erratic and rapidly flowing glacial streams.
It has excellent examples of ice and frost action in a tundra setting including formation of polygons and an area of spectacularly collapsing and growing palsas. Glacial rivers originating in the snowfields continue to cut through bedrock. Large unvegetated areas illustrate the phenomenon of weathering.

Criteria (ix)
The importance of the vast mire complex of Sjaunja has been recognized by its Ramsar site designation and is the largest in Europe outside Russia. The area has primeval coniferous forest with dating indicating ages as old as 700 years. Natural succession continues here unimpaired.

Comparison with other areas
In the evaluation process the Laponian area vas compared with the Virgin Komi Forests (Russian Federation) and the Nahanni and Wood Buffalo National Parks (Canada).

It was recognised that the Laponian Area contains significant differences physically and in vegetation from other World Heritage sites which share the West Eurasian Taiga Bio geographical Province. This concerns among other things the bedrock, the tree species, and the forest features. Furthermore there was no existing World Heritage site in the Sub arctic Birchwood’s Province.

The Laponian area and the Swedish Arctic region

As the Laponian area contains most of the important nature types and natural features connected to the Swedish mountains and taiga, including the arctic region, there is no other natural site in the same region that is considered for World Heritage nomination. Cultural sites however, ought to be considered if the discussion of a transnational nomination of Sámi cultural sites in the Nordic countries is brought forward.

The Swedish tentative list

The Swedish tentative list comprises of only two sites; Farms of Hälsingland, Hälsingland countryside (12/12 /2005) and The Orkesta and Markim area (01/09/1995). Both of these are cultural sites situated in the southern part of the country.

Abstract

The Laponian Area was inscribed 1996 on the World Heritage list as a mixed natural and cultural site (criteria iii, v, vii, viii, ix). The area lies right north to the Arctic circle and comprises 940 000 ha land and water. Its western part is dominated by wild and rugged mountains and deep valleys. Close to the Norwegian border there are mountain plains with large alpine lakes. Its eastern part belongs to the European-Asian taiga and consists of vast mires and coniferous forests. The area has natural conditions and is the largest protected wilderness in western Europe. It has a high level of biodiversity and is of special value for large carnivors and wetland birds. Laponia is also a land of highest cultural value to the Sámi people, who have lived her since prehistoric time. The Sámi village still remains as an organizational form, and within the Laponian Area there are seven in operation. Every spring, the Sámi lead their huge herds of reindeer towards the mountains and in the autumn back down into the forests. Sacrificial places, graves, pit traps, fences and other remains associated with reindeer husbandry are cultural traces, some of which are still more or less clearly visible in the terrain.

As the Laponian area contains most of the important nature types and natural features connected to the Swedish mountains and taiga, including the arctic region, there is no other natural site in the same region that is considered for World Heritage nomination. Cultural sites however, ought to be considered if the discussion of a transnational nomination of Sámi cultural sites in the Nordic countries is brought forward.